Adding pages to MediaWiki namespaces

After learning how to create a MediaWiki page, you can organize your pages into namespaces. Namespaces in MediaWiki are similar to categories in that when you create pages and they can be stored in certain page locations. For example, You can have "How to?" pages stored in the "Help" namespace, or you can have discussions stored in the "Talk" namespace.

The image to the right shows the available namespaces that are built into MediaWiki. Most of your MediaWiki pages will go into the "MediaWiki" Namespace. This article will explain what each namespace is for and how to create a "Help" and "Talk" namespace.

MediaWiki Built-in namespaces

MediaWiki by default has its own built-in namespaces. Two namespaces do not contain any editabe pages, the "Special" and "Media" namespaces. The rest of the namespaces are premade for organizing the pages. The following table explains what each namespace is for.

Namespaces with pages

Name

Description

Main

This namespace is for storing the main content of the wiki. its also called the "main namespace" or "mainspace".

Talk

The talk is a part of the "Main" namespace. This is reserved for discussions.

User

This namespace us reserved for user pages. This contains user article updates, recent changes, and information about the users wiki contribution.

User talk

This is a discussion namespace designed for discussions between registered users.

Project

The "Project" namespace is designed for development related information about the wiki.

Project talk

Similar to the "Project" namespace, this name space will have discussions between users about the development of the site.

File

Every image, video and other file that is stored in the "Media" namespace will have a page created individually for it. This is the namespace that stores the page that is created for media.

File talk

This namespace is for discussions related to the File namespace.

MediaWiki

The "MediaWiki" namespace contains the files such as CSS, skin edit, and other system configuration pages.

MediaWiki talk

This is a discussion namespace for discussing issues with the "MediaWiki" namespace.